None of Your Business
by Davies
Summary: A question gets asked and answered. Part One of the Raye Trilogy


_This was my first attempt at writing a Sailor Moon fan-fiction. When I wrote it, I was hampered in the endeavour by the fact that while I was trying to see every episode of the second season of Sailor Moon, I had seen only a handful of the first season, which is when this short story takes place. I had, however, read the translated scripts, as well as Hitoshi Doi's summaries. (All hail Doi-sama!) Unfortunately, I had no idea what DIC left in any given episode. So I made quite a few mistakes - from referring to Darien's negaverse-empowered form as "Prince Endymion", to having had Raye slap Serena and call her a wimp._

_I eventually decided, around the time that I was writing this story's sequel, that my stories took place in an alternate universe to either version of Sailor Moon canon, which blends aspects of the North American series with those of the original. In other words, after I'd made my mistakes, I went back and changed the universe so that they weren't mistakes. If only it were so simple in real life ..._

_Enough exposition. (And anyone who writes in to complain about the dub names, or points out that Venus was the leader and not Jupiter, can get stuffed.)_

**None of Your Business**

Raye felt, rather than heard, the padding of stocking feet behind her as she knelt before the sacred fire. Heavy footsteps, but graceful, too. It could be Chad, the young would-be rock star who had taken to life in the shrine better than anyone had expected. _No. It's Lita._

Lita knelt a respectful distance behind Raye. The irony of this deference was considerable on several levels. Raye's unclear memories of their previous lives in the Silver Millenium indicated quite clearly that Lita - she had just been Jupiter then - had been the leader of the defenders of Princess Serenity. But because of Raye's status as a priestess in _this_ life, she was treated as an equal, if not slightly superior. _More proof, as though Serena isn't proof enough, that we truly are different than we were back then._

"Are you actually praying, or could I have a word?" Lita's husky voice interrupted Raye's musings.

Raye turned around smoothly. "Yes?"

Lita was frowning. It wasn't her "I'm peeved to the max" frown. It was more like a "I'm not sure quite how to say this" frown. "I think ... that you have some explaining to do."

Lita got up, and started to pace the width of the hall of the sacred fire. She stopped momentarily.

"I'm not Amy."

Raye was somewhat bewildered. "I never realized," she said, trying to relax the tension in the room. It didn't work.

"What I'm trying to say," Lita continued, taking great apparent care in her choice of words, "is that I don't usually think with my head, like Amy does. I think, more than I should, with my fists. But also, more than I should, with my heart." She turned away from Raye, and continued speaking. "I know that you all think that I'm silly to chase after every guy who looks or even sounds like my ex-boyfriend, but I do have my reasons. He ... meant a lot to me. He was the only guy I ... well, you know."

_Hoo boy. _"No," Raye replied after a moment to recover from the surprise that Lita had just sprung on her. "I didn't know."

Lita continued to look away from Raye. "That's not much of a shock, y'know. I think with my fists, Amy thinks with her head, you think with your soul ... I don't know what Mina thinks with ... I don't know if Serena thinks ..."

"This is true."

Lita turned her gaze back to Raye. "This isn't about Serena. Well, it is, sort of. But not yet. This ... I came here to talk about you."

"Is this Truth or Dare, Lita?" Raye asked, baffled.

"No. That little ... revelation was more to explain where I'm coming from." Lita pursed her lips, again giving the impression of trying to find the best way to put this. "I know that you and ... Darien had a dating thing going for a while. But recently, I've been watching you, and it's seemed to me ... that something more was going on."

Raye instantly knew what Lita was talking about. That time in the Negaverse when Serena had decided to quit being the Princess, and she had accused Serena of being a wimp whom Darien had been a fool to risk his life for. And later, when Darien had returned ... but as a pawn of the Negaverse, Endymion ... she had wept and pleaded as much if not more than Serena had.

"Raye ... we're not close. We're friends, but we're not good buddies. If it weren't for the fact that we knew each other in a previous life, I doubt that I'd ever even have met you. But we have to be comrades; I watch your back, you watch mine, and we both watch the other Sailor Scouts'. Now, I think that it's important ... not just to me, but to all of us ... that we know."

Raye gazed unblinkingly at Lita. "Know what?" she asked, calmer than she felt.

Lita held the gaze. "Did you have sex with Darien?"

Raye let out the breath she'd been holding. She had, on some level, expected one of her fellows to come asking the question for some time now. She had hoped that it would be Amy, who would be nervous about asking it. Better that than Mina, whom she hardly really knew yet. Or worse, Serena. She envisioned the temper tantrum that the Princess (and oh, it galled her to accord the little so-and-so that title) would throw. She had not expected the asker to be Lita. She had underestimated her.

"Lita," she began quietly, "whatever there was between me and Darien was over the moment I saw the two of them looking at each other just after he took that shard for her."

"That's not what I asked," Lita interrupted.

"_It's what I'm answering._ I won't get in their way if ... _when_ we get Darien back. That's what you were concerned about, wasn't it?"

Lita closed her eyes, and sighed. "That's one of the things." Eyes opened, she continued, "But I'm also worried about what happens if one of us is in danger from Endymion, and you freeze, because you don't want to hurt your old boyfriend."

That hurt Raye more than she would ever let show. She wanted to let the fiery rage that burned through her loose at Lita. But she knew that it would do no good. Lita would simply stand in the center of the rage, not blinking, not backing down.

"If that happens ... I'll do what I have to do. The old relationship doesn't matter to me. What matters is protecting Earth."

"All right. So your answer is, it doesn't matter?"

Raye nodded once. Lita turned to go.

"Lita!" Raye suddenly called out.

Lita turned back to gaze at Raye.

"What you said about you and your old boyfriend ... was it true?"

Lita nodded. "We did it when I -"

"I don't need to know," Raye interrupted. "But you gave me the truth, and so I owe you the truth. The real answer to the question of whether or not I had sex with Darien ..."

"Yes?"

"Is 'None of your business.'"


End file.
